Board may fine Tropicana over currency laws

Thursday, June 25, 1998 | 2:54 a.m.

The nine-count Gaming Control Board complaint alleges the Tropicana improperly extended credit to South Korean residents and then tried to collect debts from them.

According to the complaint filed Wednesday, Tropicana executives should have obtained permission of South Korean officials before issuing credit in the first place.

Vernon Nelson, Tropicana's associate corporate counsel, declined to comment, saying only, "We are aware a complaint has been filed. It's being reviewed by counsel."

The complaint charges that the Tropicana in October 1996 issued about $990,000 in credit to a South Korean resident, in violation of that country's limits on debts to non-residents.

The complaint also says that in late October 1996 the Tropicana tried to collect gambling debts of about $200,000 from a Korean resident, and Tropicana marketing representative Charlie Kim delivered $186,383 and one uncashed check to the Trop in December 1996.

The complaint also says that on at least three occasions in mid-1997, Sammy Jung, the Tropicana's executive director of Far East marketing, traveled to South Korea to collect debts.

In November 1997, a South Korean court sentenced Jung to a 1-year suspended prison term and also forced him to surrender about $100,000 that he had collected from a gambler.

The GCB also alleges that Jung secretly imported into the United States about $850,000 in gambling debts collected from South Koreans. The move violated U.S. customs law, according to the complaint.